Womens toilet with cubicles in the workplace

[Foodylicious]

What should the position be here from the employer/organisation perspective, regarding a transwomen intermittently using these, as opposed to the single enclosed toilet (think typical disabled facility available in a supermarket/cafe) they use most of thw time, that is on the same floor/in close proximity.
Edited to add: This is UK, England.

The TW should not be using them, it’s covered under U.K. health and safety law that employers need to provide single sex provision, they can provide mixed sex facilities only if the toilet and cubicle are fully self contained.

The exact wording of the requirement for separate toilet facilities in UK workplaces is found in Regulation 20(2)(c) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.

Exact Wording
"(2) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), sanitary conveniences shall not be suitable unless—
...
(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."

Key Terms and Conditions

• Definition of "Room": For a unisex facility to be legal under the exception in 20(2)(c), it must be a fully self-contained room—not merely a cubicle with open gaps at the top and bottom.
• Washing Facilities (Regulation 21): A similar requirement exists for washing facilities under Regulation 21(2)(h), which mandates they be separate for men and women unless they are in a lockable room intended for use by only one person at a time.
• Hand Washing Exception: The requirement for separate washing facilities does notapply to rooms used solely for washing hands, forearms, and faces.

Citation
The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, SI 1992/3004, Regulation 20(2)(c).

If the women's toilets have communal sinks and door gaps then the transwomen should be banned as these are a single sex design, if the sinks are in the cubicles and they have floor to ceiling walls and door the he can use them.
The health and safety at work 1992 act covers this.

I know I am in the .minority in here, though not in the circles I move in - I just do not get the hysteria over toilets.
I am a woman, I have granddaughters - as long as we can lock our cubicle doors I am happy.

As long as violence against women and girls exists, single sex spaces are essential. Men, should not be in single sex spaces designated for females. Men, believing themselves to be women, does not make them women...

You ok with them in a changing room getting a good oggle of your granddaughters?

@Hoardasurass Not if the door says women, it would have to say gender neutral or mixed sex for it to be legal.

Bully for you that you are okay, so lots of other women are not okay.

So, firstly some women don’t feel comfortable sharing a room where it could be just her and a man. This might be because;

1. she has previously been a victim of sexual assault. 110000 women were sexually assaulted by an unknown male in a public place last year. And only 5 in 6 report this, so the numbers are much higher.
2. she may have been upskirted or filmed by a man in a public place. Cameras being left in toilets filming women in cubicles left by men are in the rise.
3. she may be a woman who has a young child and sometimes needs to jam the pram in the cubicle and leave the door slightly ajar. This is fairly common for mothers out with sleeping babies.
4. she may suffer from heavy periods or use a moon cup and doesn’t want to wash menstrual blood from her hands in front of men
5. she may be constrained by religous beliefs where she can’t undress or be in an enclosed room with unknown men
6. She may be trying to get away from a man following her or worse and seeking a safe place of refuge.
7. most importantly she may just want a single sex space fir her own reasons

glad you are ok though. 😏

And apparently there isn’t any violence against women caused by transgender women in toilets unless you count in post encase-rated men who claim to be women in prisons? Not certain what the hysteria is relating to domestic abuse against all types of women in toilets is in reality. I agree with other areas of course that must be female (as opposed to the gendered term of Women) Just saying and I know the gender critical ( is that what it’s called ) contingent will tell me I’m wrong but I’m generally open to all discussions.

Personally I’m not overly bothered about toilets, HOWEVER if you say that any single sex provision is open to some males then all single sex provision is open to all males and I am definitely bothered about changing rooms, rape/domestic abuse services, personal care from health services, prisons etc. So the line needs to remain clear and it is that no males are allowed in spaces/services designated as for women and girls.

No violence from men towards women? Wtf?

are you for real?

Any space where it is justified to exclude men like female only toilets must exclude all men - even if they really really don’t want to be men.

So-called ‘transwomen’ are men.

So you're OK with men using the women's toilets. What about toilets where the cubicle doors and sides are high off thefloor, or have a large gap above? You know, the ones where you have handed toilet paper to the next woman?

If toilets are OK, what about changing rooms? Does is make a difference to you whether there is a 'lockable' door, or is a curtain OK if men are wandering around? Doors can be unlocked from the outside, so what difference does a curtain?

If changing rooms with curtained cubicles are OK, what about communal showers?

Where are your boundaries?

Do you have boundaries?

Do you respect other people's boundaries?

Do you respect women's boundaries?

@Indianajet @InfoSecInTheCity Toilet doors have to be openable from the outside for building regs due to health and safety. So you are in an enclosed space and if it’s unisex it is private so you have no idea who is waiting outside the cubicle other than both men and women are permitted to be there. 100% of the perpetrators of sexual assaults in toilets are men.

If anyone was to have a medical emergency inside the cubicle, it can take hours or even days before they are found (based on real evidence I have from the last few years in this country). Private toilets are more likely to be used for sex and drug use, which is a reason why disabled toilets can have a radar key.

Single sex toilets in a single sex environment are the only ones (in England at least) that can have door gaps for ventilation, cleaning, supervision and prevention of misuse. In contrast unisex toilets have to be private and contain the basin and dryer in them (in England). Medical studies have shown unisex toilets contain the most pathogens. You are basically washing your hands in the sink and drying your hands in the dryer that both will have microbes on from the plume that rises up from the flushes of the previous occupants if they are around 1m or less from the toilet without a barrier. There is a reason unisex toilet rooms smell more.

I am not hysterical, just into researching the healthiest and safest toilets for everyone to use, in particular medically vulnerable people, women and children.

Regarding health and safety, everyone is at a disadvantage but the least disadvantaged are healthy men.

If you have such a liberal definition of the word 'hysteria' you apply it to a woman calmly seeking clarification on her rights to single sex toilets at work, then I'm not surprised you think its everywhere.

@Hoardasurass 1992?

A 1992 regulation that updates a 1960s one, that updated a 1940s one. Not sure what you find shocking about the date.

I'm shocked that you used "hysteria" to describe women's reaction to something. Are you trying to be goady? That's such a blatantly misogynistic term that I can't think of any other reason to use it on a feminist forum.

To answer your question, I was raped in a public toilet when I was a toddler. It may be my earliest memory. I have flashbacks if I see a man in a public toilet. Is that a good enough reason, in your opinion, for me to not want to see men, including transwomen, in public toilets or will you mock my "hysteria" for wanting to avoid flashbacks which can last for hours or days and include pain, terror, and wanting to die? What if my religion prohibited me from sharing intimate spaces with men? Is that acceptable to you or do you mock those women too?

Because you are in an enclosed area with a random male.

Yep 1992 and what is more it was a European directive, like your username suits you.

@GenderlessVoidI am so, so sorry that happened to you. Awful, just awful. I was sexually abused by an older male family member - I am very wary of being alone in areas that I can't escape from easily.

Wrong look up Katie Dawalski he identified as a woman before he sexually assaulted 2 girls in supermarket toilets

Yes the most recent update to the health and safety law covering this

I'm sorry you had to deal with sexual abuse. Your reaction is completely understandable. So many women deal with a lifetime of reactions to trauma, all of us coping as best we can. Every time I think about it, I get very sad, esp bc so much abuse still goes on.

No one asks to be abused or to have reactions that make their life more difficult, even long after the abuse ends. I don't understand why people like IndianaJet are so judgmental about how some people react to trauma.

There are many excellent reasons for excluding men (which means excluding all transwomen) from Women's Toilets:

• If the cubicle door/walls have gaps at the top and bottom (very beneficial for safety), it is easy to film using a mobile phone slotted under or over
• Evidence shows that a transwoman is as likely as any other man to commit a violent or sexual crime
• A man who dresses as a woman for erotic purposes could find just being in the Women's Toilets arousing. So he presents a greater danger to women and girls than the average man
• Very few transwomen pass so they will be correctly seen by other users as men. And this is likely to make some women and girls feel uncomfortable and/or unsafe
• When women or girls feel unsafe in public they're more likely to self-exclude rather than complain and risk being labelled transphobic
• So including transwomen means excluding women and girls

I was interested you mention that in your circles, there's majority support for transwomen's inclusion in women's spaces.

Very few women I know over the age of 35, support inclusion. The only exceptions being those on the very hard-left. Even women working in an apparently captured profession, e.g. social work, charity sector or television production, usually pay lip service at work, while being privately relieved by the Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act 2010.

There are no benefits to women and girls from including men in their single sex spaces. Transwomen are men. But there are many costs and risks of allowing them in.