Mixed sex toilets are terrifying for women but just a laugh for men.

[CrocsNotDocs]

I can enjoy a good fart joke but this “hilarious” anecdote by cricket commentator David “Bumble” Lloyd left me cold. Men really have no idea of the fear women have of mixed sex facilities.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/3843028419327926/?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&fs=e&fs=e

If the link doesn’t work, it’s a viral, supposedly hilarious account of David going into a mixed-sex loo for a poo and letting off a loud fart. The lady in the cubicle next to him calls out “Is that you Maureen”.

From David’s point of view, (and pretty much every man and “cool girl” on the planet) he thinks that Maureen must be such a regular farter that her friend thinks the fart noise just has to be her.

I suspect most women would read this situation differently- Maureen’s friend has realised she was half naked inches away from a strange man and is calling out anxiously to her friend to make sure she isn’t alone.

I’m wondering what this board’s thoughts would be. Am I just looking to hard into an anecdote or is men’s complete obliviousness a big issue when it comes to mixed sex facilities.

That's why I put a warning on it. Problem is that:

• If I link, you all need the brain bleach.
• If I don't link, there's no evidence to support the claim that men have menstrual fetishes, so the wilfully blind "be kind" crowd can carry denying it.

Exactly. The standard women's+men's+accessible configuration works for something like 99% of the population.

It is the configuration either required, or recommended by many building regs, health and safety regs, workplace regs., etc.

A noisy 1% don't like it, but why should their preferences override everybody else's?

Yep. This is why the ‘we should have additional mixed sex loos so a child with an opposite adult carer can go to the loo together’ doesn’t work either. Versions of this phrase I see over and over again. Having a man lead a boy or girl into a male single sex toilet cubicle that has door gaps is a safer design for the child because it is not completely private. Going back to the 4 reasons building standards officers stipulated door gaps were advantageous at the time of the Legislation in 1992. They still hold true today: ventilation, cleaning, supervision, prevention of misuse.
Researching toilet safety can be very unpleasant.

Well I wish I hadn’t.

But now I know it exists, I couldn’t possibly justify mixed sex facilities. Could you?

I wish I hadn't read the bits of that, that I did. If the women involved were real women and not just part of a fantasy I'm horrified at how they helped to invade the privacy of other women. The whole thing is horrible.

"This is why the ‘we should have additional mixed sex loos so a child with an opposite adult carer can go to the loo together’ doesn’t work either."

Precisely, there is no need. If they're very young and there's no family room they can simply use the one matching the parent's sex who they are with.

But other women may be terrified, if they are in a mixed sex toilet and the only other occupant is a man. Women who have been assaulted, women who have been subject to abuse by men, rape victims. And who wants a man at the washbasins when you may have to deal with bloodied hands or clothes? Dignity and privacy are as important as safety.

You are absolutely right and I am horrified that I didn't myself see the safeguarding chasm.

I had completely forgotten that a man could lead a child that isn't his into a single-occupant self-contained loo, in order to molest the child. One would hope that, in the gent's with the door gaps, the actual or potential presence of other men would act as a deterrent.

Yes I think it does. Most men are good men.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/alvin-tuitt-rape-girl-toilets-kings-cross-station-jailed-b1073679.html

I remember this a few years back.
It’s a disabled toilet but mixed sex toilets are popping up everywhere.

Unfortunately I have lots of articles where children have been assaulted and the common design feature is it’s private, and almost always mixed sex. Doesn’t seem to matter how busy the area is in front of the toilet. The perpetuators are always men.

That’s why it is right there should be an exemption of young children going into single sex toilets with their parents and those cubicles should have gaps under the doors and partitions. It’s also why I get so frustrated when I hear that we should have private, mixed sex toilet rooms specifically for opposite sex parent/carer and child combinations. It’s the most dangerous toilet design for children.

Funny how the "I don’t mind" chorus don’t typically return to reply or respond to this very clear point on other women’s response to mixed sex toilets. Would you say that all women read too much into mixed sex toilets @Changingplace? Does it never matter regardless of circumstances?

Exactly. And no, they never come back! Bad actors.

Just to add all new mixed sex toilets have to be private designs and have the basin in the same room as the toilet (in England with some exceptions such as schools). In 1992 workplace legislation, all mixed sex provision should have a toilet enclosed in a separate room (not cubicle). Mixed sex provision was never meant to be widespread. It was supposed to be for places like a cafe with one toilet.

There’s a lot of designs out there that fall foul of the regulations. Schools have been able to get past most of it so are now the ones that are really hit. 25% may need to change provision.

I must be an Oscar worthy actor the amount I come back!!

Thank you for all your hard work @Keeptoiletssafe ! Factual evidence is crucial.

Could you elaborate on what counts as a separate room? Does it just mean they have basins in them? My workplace has what I would describe as cubicles - all off the same little narrow corridor and feel quite flimsy - but they all have their own basins. Just trying to work out if it's compliant.

This is a really good question and one people I have asked have avoided answering. In the spirit of the 1992 legislation I would argue it is clear that rooms and cubicles are very different, with cubicles being part of a room. I say this because of the way things like ventilation is worked out and how the British Standards were worded at the time.

This is what British Standards said at the time of the 1992 legislation:
Doors to WC compartments, WC cubicles and bathrooms should be fitted with simple safety locks, easily released from outside for access in case of emergency. This is particularly important where elderly or disabled persons or children are involved.
WC compartments should be self contained, but 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.

This is what the 1992 legislation says:
20.—(1) Suitable and sufficient sanitary conveniences shall be provided at readily accessible places.
(2) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), sanitary conveniences shall not be suitable unless—
(a)the rooms containing them are adequately ventilated and lit;
(b)they and the rooms containing them are kept in a clean and orderly condition; and
(c)separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside.

My analogy is you don’t say a wardrobe is a separate room from the bedroom. The set up you have I don’t think was envisaged to be a normal set up. Legislation was geared to single sex provision as no one foresaw this happening.

Edit: you can’t just have mixed sex toilets as that is discrimination. I think Sex Matters have a good article on this

I tried to edit but my edit is unclear. What I meant to say in @Mithral example with lots of unisex toilets is that there should be single sex too.

Thanks! It's not wildly clear is it but I think my office probably is compliant (annoyingly, I would much rather we had separate facilities) although then I keep coming back to whether room has some sort of meaning beyond enclosed space.

The walls are floor to ceiling and they lock from the inside but they feel like cubicles - two rows facing each other across a teeny narrow space which is itself accessed via a door to the main office space.

This doesn’t seem like it complies because the self contained cubicles are within a self contained room rather than a main area. Am I right.

We have the same mixed toilet set up in our office, you have to enter a door to a room and then there are 6 self contained cubicles within that room. There are male and female single sex too. However, there only two cubicles in the women’s versus 6 in the mixed sex. I don’t know about the men’s.

I can't see anything in the regulations that means that to be a room it must be accessed from a main area. It's so annoyingly vague though!

Are you in England? How many toilets (women, men, unisex) are there in total?

Apologies, I won’t be able to reply for a while but will get back at some point. These are useful
https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/workplace-toilets-know-your-rights/

https://www.theretailbulletin.com/retail-solutions/legal-do-retailers-have-to-provide-single-sex-toilets-and-changing-rooms-for-their-customers-and-staff-19-05-2025/

I'm in England. There are 8 toilets in the block I described plus 1 accessable one elsewhere. All mixed sex. I'll check the links thanks.

So no single sex toilets then. I do think you can raise that. The links should help.

Sorry for the delay in responding to your post, but actually I am not in the habit of having my knickers down in the toilet except behind a locked door.