Sunderland Minster refusing to comply with Supreme Court ruling

[labtest57]

This is from their Facebook page today. No consideration for the women who do not want men in their spaces.

Urinals are practical and effective in men's toilets. Why would anyone want to remove them? Out of spite? And they are nothing to do with the issues for women that this thread is about.

They still lock up the booze, the collection money and the silverware.

Even the most devout Christians know how to mitigate risk and when to use safeguards when it suits them.

Because they aren't mens toilets any more, they are unisex. At least the ones I was talking about it doesn't look like there were ever urinals in the mens toilets.

Can I just check that you are describing properly compliant unisex (universal) toilets? Is each toilet in a separate, fully enclosed room containing a toilet, a wash basin and a hand dryer where each room has door which is lockable from the inside and opens onto a corridor?

Good point! The idea that you can just switch the labels on the doors of existing men's and women's toilets and bingo! you have gender neutral facilities is wrong.
As you say, JanesLittleGirl, there are precise specifications for 'universal' toilets, and standard cubicles don't meet those standards.

Just re-badging the women's and men's isn't OK.
Having mixed sex toilets only is not compliant where Doc T of Building Regs applies, i.e. in recent builds in England, which have to have segregated single sex provision in the first place as long as there's enough space, and may have mixed sex toilets in addition, and as an option.

It seems like a lot of organisations and venues are making stuff up as they go along, and it often seems like they go for the arrangement which least suits women - e.g. removing women's toilets rather than men's to replace them with mixed sex ones. Could it be spite??

So much of it sounds completely dodgy from a health and safety/EA/building regs/workplace regs point of view. I would love a crack squad of inspectors to be armed formed to go through the country like avenging angels and sort it all out😠

Having mixed sex toilets only is not compliant where Doc T of Building Regs applies, i.e. in recent builds in England, which have to have segregated single sex provision in the first place as long as there's enough space, and may have mixed sex toilets in addition, and as an option.

There's a subtlety here that may be important.

The building regulations apply to new builds and large renovations that require regulatory approval. They mean that, in time, as physical estate is updated, this will become the norm (unless of course the regulations are changed in the future.)

Meanwhile, regulations aren't retroactive - so if works or changes at a church don't rise to the bar of whatever triggers a requirement for approval, Document T doesn't apply to them.

Having mixed sex toilets only is not compliant where Doc T of Building Regs applies, i.e. in recent builds in England, which have to have segregated single sex provision in the first place as long as there's enough space, and may have mixed sex toilets in addition, and as an option.

So if my Leisure Centre had been a new build they wouldn't have got away with creating two "unisex" toilets? I suspect that it wouldn't class as a large renovation. The Ladies used to be two cubicles and a wash basin outside the cubicle and then the outer door opening onto the corridor.

I don't know about the Gents - I suspect one cubicle and a couple of urinals.

Meanwhile in the local park the Ladies and Gents have been replaced by two "Unisex loos" and some urinals. I strongly suspect that the majority of users of the park are women and small children. So why the extra provision for men? I doubt if the Town Council even thought that they were being discriminatory.

Meanwhile in the local park the Ladies and Gents have been replaced by two "Unisex loos" and some urinals.

Just, why, why, why? The vast majority of the public, men and women, prefer traditional toilets as we have had throughout the 20th century and beyond. This is nothing to justify these sorts of changes. Did the Council canvass the views of the public before doing this?

Did the Council canvass the views of the public before doing this?

I certainly don't recall being asked.

Perhaps there needs to be a Toilet Regulations Compliance Flowchart. With branching pathways for things like

• new build/not; staff use only /staff and public/public use only; single sex/unisex/mixed sex.

But I would hate to have to design it!

Puerile? I don't know whether to assume you are sexist, using a (mildly) derogatory word deriving from the Latin for "boy", or that you identify as a boy. 😉

@TheignT This wasn't some random gotcha. I really want to know how these unisex facilities are configured. I would really appreciate a reply.

You've piqued my interest with ' large renovations that require regulatory approval. '

Doc T says that 'the Building Regulations apply to all types of building work as defined in regulation 3 of the Building Regulations.'
But I wasn't able to track down reg 3 of the Building Regs.

I wonder, though, if removing a block of cubicle-based sex segregated toilets, and replacing it with a commensurate number of 'universal' toilets, would be regarded as 'building work'.

If so, not only would newbuilds in England since 2024 have to comply with Doc T, but also existing buildings which had carried out the 'large renovation' of radically altering their toilet facilities.

In other words, by removing the sex segregated toilets and replacing the solely with universal toilets, they would have contravened building regs?🤔

And that's where one of my crack team of avenging angels swoops in and tells them to restore the women's and men's separate facilities pronto..... if they know what's good for them😡

Since I have Doc T of the Building Regs [for England only, unfortunately] on speed-dial😏, it might be useful for TheignT to have the definition of what a 'universal toilet' is:

“universal toilet” means toilet facilities which—
(a) are provided in a fully enclosed room which contains a water closet and washbasin and hand-drying facilities, and
(b) is intended for individual use by persons of either sex.
Approved Document T - Toilet accomodation

The document states that the provision of universal toilets is optional - separate men's and women's toilets must be provided as long as there is enough space for them. Universal toilets may be provided, as an added extra.

Google AI (I know, I know...) says that Document T applies to (among other things):

Material Alterations: Any change to an existing building's toilet design or designation (e.g., converting single-sex toilets to gender-neutral ones or altering core layouts).

So you may have an avenue of approach there.

Material Alterations: Any change to an existing building's toilet design or designation (e.g., converting single-sex toilets to gender-neutral ones or altering core layouts).

I suspect that my Leisure centre will be able to get away with it because they still have single sex loos inside the changing room. It's in the Main hallway were the unisex ones are.

I always want to ask what is their threshold for assaults on women by transwomen they are willing to tolerate before they change back…1, 10, 50?

From my brief searching I got the idea that the threshold was crossed whenever new pipework has to be installed. New pipework means inspection, and inspection raises the spectre of regulation and specification.

That MN posters consider it necessary to chase up this kind of detail (and rightly so), just to try and make sure that people are actually, y'know, doing their jobs, shows exactly where we are. And it's not pretty, is it?

The answer is always n+1. The current number whatever it is plus another 1

they (as in the broad powers that be) don't care how many women are assaulted as long as men aren't in any way mildly inconvenienced or upset

Thats for to be a candidate for a complaint letter/small claims. It’s clearly discriminatory to women and children. The staff won’t use these loos or understand so if you were feeling brave the thread no would be to call the staffer down to the park to see in reality what they’ve done. No mention of gender etc it’s just a practical matter

That's really useful thank you!
I've always felt that making significant changes to a previously fully compliant building, i.e. removing the single sex toilet provision completely, can't be right, but IANABRI.
[I am not a building regs inspector]

I suspect there are loads of buildings out there which are not, or are no longer, building regs compliant, because they fell for the alleged 'inclusivity' of mixed sex toilets, and the accompanying noisy and aggressive TRA campaign against women's spaces.

I've no idea what can be done about it, in the absence of my crack team of Avenging Angel Building Regs Inspectors.

Maybe some plain vanilla Building Regs Inspectors will start taking an interest in non-compliance😏

Yes they were always like that, well the women's were I didn't use the mens but now they are unisex I've been in what was the mens and it's exactly like the women's. The only change is the sign on the door is just toilets not mens/women's.

It's fine ask away. The toilets were on a corridor so you had a row of toilets which were identical (I know now because I used one that used to be designated for men) except X number had a sign indicating it was a toilet for men and y had a sign indicating it was for women, now they just say toilet.

Thinking about it the funny thing is the toilets in the changing room were always unisex but they aren't compliant as hand basins are in a row facing the cubicles although the floor to ceiling bit was compliant. Maybe they will add basins now.