Quote:
Originally Posted by tweetiepooh
Gender neutral toilets, depending on the layout, are a real pain if like me you need to catheterise yourself. I try to use the wheel-chair accessible units as even male toilets can be interesting.
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Gender neutral toilets are not safe for women unless they are a single, lockable room containing all necessary facilities (toilet, sink, dryer, mirror), whose door is straight off an open public space. Where you see those in the UK they generally are all-in-one male/female/accessible rooms, although as I’m not looking for accessible facilities I admit I may not notice where those are missing.
The important nuance here that must not be lost is that a single public restroom where, behind a door, there is a communal handwashing area and beyond that, a line of unisex cubicles, is not a safe space for women and girls, even if the cubicle door/wall extends from floor to ceiling. It permits men to mingle with women and to hang around outside their cubicle, away from public view.
*A* man may well not be a risk - I’m not, I’m sure you’re not - but men, as a category, are most definitely a risk to women in statistical terms. It is why we have had toilets segregated by sex ever since the Victorians began accepting the need for public conveniences for women.
And, as so-called ‘transwomen’ are in fact men, the same statistical rules apply. They are at least as much of a risk, and in fact the numbers of trans-identifying men in UK prisons for sex crimes suggests the risk may actually be higher.