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.

I hate mixed sex loos. Grim embarrassing and potentially dangerous- what’s not to like 🙄

Our loos at work are all mixed sex. Id rather they weren't as sometimes there is piss on the floor but I don't find them intimidating or anything just a bit less hygienic.

You know the toilets in service stations along the motorway, the ones that are down a long corridor tucked out of the way and out of visibility of passers by. Would you feel comfortable letting a 12yr old female relative go to the loo by herself if you knew that it was considered completely acceptable for any male who wants to use the womens toilet to wander in and no one could question their presence for fear of being labelled a bigot? What if they skipped all pretence and just announced it’s mixed sex and a free for all, is your 12 yr old relative still going by herself or are you waiting for her outside the cubicle?

Expand your thinking, if you remove the ability to make anything actually single sex because the laws are changed to allow for ambiguity in what constitutes a woman then if your female relative or you ever find yourselves in a women’s prison, are you comfortable with the cellmate they are locked in with and forced to toilet in full visibility of, and shower with to be male? How would we prevent males who don’t even try to pretend they identify as women from lodging discrimination claims saying they are being directly discriminated against by preventing them from being in a women’s prison if there are examples of other males who have been allowed that ‘privilege’?

If you were raped and asked for a female medical professional and police officer to conduct the examination and interview would you be comfortable with a male in a female uniform doing that on the basis that they consider themselves to be women, or do you think you should have the right to request an alternative without being considered a bigot?

If you were going through airport security and flagged for a pat down or even a strip search would you be content for that to be conducted by a man, the erosion of single sex provisions and the lack of clarity means that every situation where a female may reasonably be able to expect and request female provision is at risk.

It is not possible to write a law or put in place a societal expectation that says “ in this circumstance and this circumstance only, women are considered to be anyone who identifies as/lives as a woman, lives as is not defined as having any specific criteria and is entirely self assessed and proclaimed but should be believed and adhered to by all humans who interact with said individual without question, but only for this circumstance and it can only be used by those who genuinely identify as women by their own definition it cannot be abused by males or used as a basis of a discrimination claim.’

During an interval at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, the queue for the women’s toilets was massive but one of the employees (Security?) allowed some women to use the Men’s. He stood outside and if a man approached, he asked them to wait a while which they appeared to happily do.

Don’t care less if there’s mixed sex toilets as long as the basin is in the cubicle, I prefer basins in the cubicle myself as easier if you need to deal with periods etc

It’s not always about safety but privacy and dignity.

I have quite a lot of experience of mixed sex loos in parts of Scandinavia. I felt very uncomfortable in a mixed sex loo queued out of the door where there were large gaps beneath the door and men centimetres away only on the other side of a thin toilet door.

Loos are to exercise biological functions and should be separated on the basis of biology. Women don’t only use loos for toileting. They have the right to privacy for menstruation, menopausal flooding, miscarriage, pregnancy sickness etc. Over my years in ladies loos at work I’ve mopped up tears, helped an unconscious lady after a fit ( one arm sticking out bottom cubicle door) helped a colleague having a miscarriage. Please, even if you don’t care about this, don’t deny other women their preferences.

If a mixed sex toilet is clearly labelled mixed sex then that is entirely different from a toilet labelled women's which lets in men

I think this story is bollocks btw. It's a typical bumble 'anecdote' told for laughs. I don't know a single woman who hearing someone fart in the next door toilet would yell out "is that you (insert name here)?" In my experience men find farting intrinsically and endlessly hilarious in a way that women just don't

I don't think I've ever been in a mixed sex toilet except the ones that are complete stand alone cubicles with full doors and own sinks. Have I missed some big change?

EvelynBeatrice….Loos are to exercise biological functions and should be separated on the basis of biology. Women don’t only use loos for toileting. They have the right to privacy for menstruation, menopausal flooding, miscarriage, pregnancy sickness etc. Over my years in ladies loos at work I’ve mopped up tears, helped an unconscious lady after a fit ( one arm sticking out bottom cubicle door) helped a colleague having a miscarriage. Please, even if you don’t care about this, don’t deny other women their preferences.

💯 👏

Same.
I used a mixed sex toilet recently at n art gallery. All cubicles had doors to the floor, and has sinks for hand washing etc.
No queue, and no issues.

I get beyond fed up with this...

if you're happy to use mixed sex toilets good for you, and I genuinely mean that. I'll hold your coat, please enjoy yourself, how lovely for you.

Please don't help to destroy my single sex space because you personally don't need it.

If there is a mixed sex space in addition, we can all have a useable space.

If men are allowed into the women's 'single sex' space and make it mixed sex because you personally aren't bovvered, then you can use it and I can't . So what would you like me to do?

'Inclusive' doesn't just mean men with trans identities.

Sorry to be that person. But NAMALT, as in I don't know any man that likes mixed sex toilets, and I mean those with a shared communal area (sinks not in the cubicle), these are different to individual separated facilities (cubicle and sink in one facility).

For instance the V&A has all types of toilets. Individual unisex all-in-one facilities, single sex communal toilets and mixed sex communal toilets.

(If someone knows a better term to describe these, please let me know!).

It's honestly like someone saying 'I don't need a wheelchair myself, so no one needs them, let's get rid of wheelchairs'.

I don't need a guide dog (at the moment). Let's stop bothering with them too, shall we? It's not like there's anyone on the planet with needs I don't have, who needs access in society. Or that anyone who is not just like me matters.

Can’t speak for anyone else, but I lived in a Scandinavian country where mixed sex toilets began to appear in addition to single sex ones. They were the same design as the single sex, with individual cubicles and sinks outside. Usually there was at least one larger cubicle with a sink inside, but most had no separate sink.

Occasionally I used them as they were nearer, but generally I preferred to walk to the single sex option.

My ex scornfully told me the appearance of all these new mixed sex spaces was nothing to do with the incursion of transactivism. I thought he was wrong then and still do. Toilet provision was standard for the previous forty years, so it being entirely coincidental seems highly unlikely.

But if you've gone into a public mixed sex toilet you are presumably well aware that that will be happening. Why would it suddenly alarm you to realise that, in a facility which also caters for males, there is a man in the vicinity?

How might you feel in a mixed facility in the night time economy, in a situation in which it was just you and several men in there?

Men aren't in women's spaces when in mixed sex toilets.

Instinctive hackles? Being in close proximity to an unknown male when in a compromised situation ( knickers down and engaged with bodly function)

Explain, please.

The reason we have single sex facilities in such situations is due to an instinctive need for privacy and dignity, especially of one's sex.

A mixed sex toilet block isn't a women's space.

How on earth does this comment help to destroy your single sex space? The poster is simply posting her own opinion.

Though many women will instinctively feel that their little cubicle is a female only space, yet with unknown males in close proximity.

What needs explaining? How can a mixed sex toilet possibly be a women's space?

If they object to that, they presumably won't go into a mixed sex facility.

Imagine yourself in a toilet cubicle, perhaps engaged with your period...and you know there may well be several unknown males in close proximity. Are you suggesting you don't feel at all uncomfortable with that?

I think we all have an instinct to preserve our boundaries when in public spaces in which we may be vulnerable.