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.

I was querying the poster that said “The health and safety at work 1992 act covers this” as the Health and Safety at Work Act was 1974, not 1992.

It's groundhog day, yes its groundhog day, yes it's gggggggg groundhog day.... <happy memories of Tony Robinson>

The law is clear. Women's single sex spaces cannot be used by any men regardless of how they identify. Because women have rights and protections under law.

If you personally consent to use mixed sex spaces then yippee for you, you'll have a lovely time in the mixed sex space, good luck with that, and long may you go on being lucky and never having your eyes opened in ways that mean you suddenly realise that you need your legal protections and single sex space rights as other women do. Sadly no woman is ever more than a day away from an experience that means she needs this provision.

Saying 'I don't need that facility' which implies heavily that no reasonable or legitimate reason exists why other women do, is like saying 'well I don't need a guide dog (so no one should have them).'

It's either crass and quite worryingly naive and thoughtless, or it's intentionally promoting what is in fact a very sexist and anti-woman and anti-inclusive agenda. Not really a very cool thing to do.

That poster was clearly referring to The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, SI 1992/3004, Regulation 20(2)(c) that were cited in the Immediately preceeding post.

1974 is the big one, 1992 set out workplace rules in more detail. The 1974 one was because of several disasters including fires.
When I did fire evacuations as a teacher, I could nip into the girls or boys toilets and instantly see if anyone was left. In the new completely private doors-shut-when-not-in-use inclusive toilets it must take much more time than the 5 minutes we targeted to get everyone out the building.

I keep coming back to the simplicity argument: the men's/women's/accessble configuration works for 99point something% of the population, and has done so for decades.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and certainly not at the noisy behest of a tiny number of transpeople.

Exactly. If we're going with 'it has to be cheap and easy and straight forward' then the answer is the SCJ judgment. The 1% it doesn't suit will just have to cope.

If on the other hand this 1% is so very desperately important, find the bloody money and hand out grants ffs.

This is, incidentally, exactly the message currently being floated for parents of children with SEND and schools etc - 'it is too expensive to meet special needs and differences, you have to get used to having what can be offered instead of what you want and would work for you, so it's the cheapest basic universal provision'. This will involve of course huge numbers of children coming out of school, rocketing exclusions, and a significant increase in danger to children who emotionally cannot cope with the situation they are in and there are no fast response effective MH resources and strategies.

Why is this fine to do to SEND children but not this group of men?

If those parents go out and smash things, pee everywhere and threaten to hurt people will the police look the other way while politicians pretend not to have noticed, or will they be arrested and charged?

Where's Wes with a frantic Hail Mary in terror of what might happen to those children's and parents' mental health if they don't get what those parents and schools say they need?

Toilets, showers, and changing facilities are single sex. Breastfeeding facilities are only for the use of women who are lactating. Its been the law for years, and there's no good reason for employers to suddenly get angst ridden about managing their staff. There should already be policies in place to manage employee expectations and behaviours, they should use them.

But whatabout the sad men? Will nobody think of the sad men?!

I don't see any hysteria over toilets, just (mainly) women who are being forced to defend the last line of privacy, dignity and safety of everyone.

As a 55 year old woman I have been on the receiving end of SA's verbally and physically in primary school, secondary school, at university, at work, in a family member's home, on the street, in pubs and clubs, on the beach, swimming pools, busses, trains etc and yes in toilets.

I've not complained about them at the time because......well what would be the point, the men in power were usually the ones I would have needed to complain to or there was a prevailing culture that when it comes down to he said/she said the men are believed, sometimes congratulated, and the women dismissed as over reacting, misunderstanding and yes being hysterical.

I'm sure if I took a straw poll of all the women I know that the same would be true for most of them and it is something that I passionately do not want for my daughter.

So the last line of safety, dignity etc is the toilets. Given that not all women have need- thankfully - of the other services that should remain single sex such as rape services and the female estate of the prison service the one common denominator is that we do need at times to use the toilet and if that line is crossed then women truly have no safe place in public and no voice.

Talking about cubicles this was trending this week on twitter link below at planet fitness. Man claiming to be trans pleasuring himself in a cubicle, you only see the shadow so it's not gratuitous but it's very obvious. There's a whole long thread of posts on twitter of them which is a lot more explicit than this which I won't share. No respect for decency or boundaries or their impact on others. https://x.com/ImMeme0/status/2008009429807989054 Doesn't matter if it's worksplace, nightclub or anywhere, there has to be either allow all men or none in because with self ID that's exactly what it is, all men.

As so many people have quoted me, I feel I should qualify my statement - I am not worried about using toilets that are also used by men, as long as I can lock the door. Our changing cubicles at the Leisure Centre I use are used by men and women- again I am happy as I can lock the door.
I did not give any opinion on transwomen using any other facilities such as open communal changing facilities - I wouldn't use them anyway as I like my privacy from both men and women.
I apologise for using the word hysteria - I am trying to think of another word that wouldn't offend. Fuss? Agitation?
I am sad for anyone who has suffered abuse, but I am not afraid of transwomen using the same toilets I do.

But do you now see that your consent to share a toilet space with a trans-identifying man is not transferable? You do not get to consent for any other women - do you see that?

Concern? Indignation? Rage? Disbelief?

Would you be happy with a man in the next cubicle masturbating as long as the cubicle has a lock?

The sad thing is, I'm not even sure that women like @Indianajet even see this as a matter of consent. I'm not sure they realise that they have a right to consent or not consent in the first place. It's all, "Nothing happened to me or mine, I'm not scared, so I have no valid reason to object." The idea that they can object for other reasons than a strong fearful emotion doesn't seem to be there at all. Which is a terrifying testament as to the kind of insidious misogyny they are living under.

So you’re happy to lock yourself into a cubicle with a hidden camera that a man has planted, and let him record you peeing. Because it’s men who plant secret cameras in women’s toilets. Nobody wants to keep trans-identifying men out of women’s spaces because of their appropriation of womanhood, but because they are men. Men plant cameras, get sexual thrills from listening to women peeing, rummage through sanitary bins to take bloody pads, terrorise and assault women. Men, not frocks, not self-images, not feelings. Men.

as long as I can lock the door. Our changing cubicles at the Leisure Centre I use are used by men and women- again I am happy as I can lock the door.

@Indianajet did you see the post informing you that for safety reasons public toilet and changing cubicle doors can be used locked from the outside.

So you can't lock the door. Still happy?

Yet we have people like Katie, we have all the many voyeurs recording women and children in Primark when they had unisex changing rooms, we know places do sweeps of toilet facilities for hidden cams, we know sexual assult is far higher when changing rooms are unisex and we know that cubicles are not protection for above because you've still got to get to them and use the other facilities such as shower and wash basins. Despite knowing all this you're still happy because you like your privacy and opt out of these spaces. You shouldn't have to opt out. Those spaces should be safe private spaces you can use.

I think you're talking about unisex single room toilets with a sink in the room, and floor to ceiling lockable doors? So the common configuration for a disabled toilet. A disabled toilet needs to be three times the width of a standard toilet to allow the wheelchair to be comfortably turned around.

These facilities are, of course, fine, and very necessary for people with a disability. But should be in addition to separate communal toilets for Men and Women.

Firstly, unisex single room toilets are very space hungry. Secondly, men do not always dress or zip themselves up fully prior to leaving. Thirdly, they are more likely to be abused for drug use/sex and so unavailable/insanitary. Most importantly, these cannot have the door gaps needed for safety should the toilet user fall ill.

Toilet refits are very expensive. UK businesses are already struggling. Why make such a massive costly change for a small number of people who cannot accept the sex of their own body?

One woman, or even a group of women, cannot consent on behalf of other women and girls to men being in their women-only spaces. It's not how consent works, thankfully.

Also it's the law under the Equality Act 2010. If a public space is labelled or advertised as being women or female only, then all men - including transwomen - must stay out. Their sex is, and always will be, male so these spaces are not for them.

I can’t be on one side of a locked door with a man on the other. Due to trauma.

what gives you the right to over ride my consent? Why does a man get to over ride that consent?

I use communal single sex changing rooms at the gym and swimming pool I go to. I wouldn’t go somewhere with mixed sex changing rooms

Why are you splitting men into two groups?

And
2) if you think that a door is protection in this digital age you should ask youself
2.A) why spy cameras are so cheap and hidable? and
2.B) why "respectable professional" men will risk prison, entry on the sex offenders register and blowing up their cushy lives and being sacked from highpay jobs to get off on collecting sex abuse images of women and children?

[Edit for from 1. 3. to 1. 2. 2A 2B]

Distress is probably the word you are looking for.

Although in my case, it's anger.

Anger that society has been so quick to strip away the veneer of respect for women as people and fall over itself to agree that of course if a man is all girly-girly, then he's not really a man at all, he's already pretty much practically a women so in with the womdn he goes!

Anger that society places the comfort of sad men over the distress of women, distress that mostly comes from the over sexualisation and under value that society condones for us in the first place.

Anger that while unisex facilities may be nicer for men and apparently preferred by service providers who inexplicably have decided it is easier to redesign and refit buildings than to just say "no" to a handful of entitled men, they are undeniably often dirtier, smellier and far less pleasant places to undo clothing or sit down in, so women's lives are yet again made just that little bit worse for the benefit of men.

You know what I don't understand? Why women value their own voices and their own experiences so little they are prepared to subjugate them to the needs of men who do not perceive us existing as anything more than sexist stereotypes.

But do you support other women who are afraid? Or have trauma? Or for whom the privacy from men we until comparatively recently took for granted is important?
You might not be able to understand why they are afraid or distressed or uncomfortable in this context, but you must know what it's like to have those feelings. Do you not want other women to be spared them?

"I am sad for anyone who has suffered abuse, but I am not afraid of transwomen using the same toilets I do."

I am sad for anyone who has suffered abuse, but I am not afraid of transwomen using the same toilets I do I have no empathy at all for you.

Does that help?

"Fuss? Agitation?" Yeah... just as bad as hysteria so don't bother. We get the idea.

It comes across as you saying - 'I'm alright, Jack! What do you mean that you are uncomfortable / have a trauma reaction / feel distressed? Just get over it, because I am fine with it...'

I wonder if you realise, that this is how you are coming across. You might not realise it. Otherwise, why did you feel the need to post that you are fine and you cannot understand the 'hysteria / fuss / agitation'?

Not only have women on this thread tried to explain (have you even read the thread?) their reactions to why they cannot use mixed sex toilet spaces, they have also tried to point out that their needs extend beyond a cubicle for many uncontroversial and very very common reasons.

That you, personally, have never had need to use the communal areas of a female single sex toilet before must means you are rather lucky not to have been in the situations that others have. Surely it doesn't take much imagination to understand that other women have needs that you obviously have not even considered and that women are telling you clearly that your limited needs doesn't mean you cannot even acknowledge that your experience is not universal?