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Post by crowblack on May 24, 2023 17:38:03 GMT
It's interesting that this initiative is coming from theatre, a sector which in the last 5 years has been in the forefront of removing - without any consultation with women - the single sex safe spaces that existed for the safety, privacy and dignity of women, and even deleting an article from The Stage that articulated the dismay many women feel about this. I trust the theatreland voices supporting this 'black out' initiative will also listen to women's concerns going forward.
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Post by winonaforever on May 24, 2023 18:46:09 GMT
It's interesting that this initiative is coming from theatre, a sector which in the last 5 years has been in the forefront of removing - without any consultation with women - the single sex safe spaces that existed for the safety, privacy and dignity of women, and even deleting an article from The Stage that articulated the dismay many women feel about this. I trust the theatreland voices supporting this 'black out' initiative will also listen to women's concerns going forward. I couldn't agree more. There are several theatres I will no longer set foot in now, I'm sick of this harping on "gender" which is made up nonsense, at the expense of biological sex.
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Post by sph on May 24, 2023 18:52:23 GMT
It's interesting that this initiative is coming from theatre, a sector which in the last 5 years has been in the forefront of removing - without any consultation with women - the single sex safe spaces that existed for the safety, privacy and dignity of women, and even deleting an article from The Stage that articulated the dismay many women feel about this. I trust the theatreland voices supporting this 'black out' initiative will also listen to women's concerns going forward. I couldn't agree more. There are several theatres I will no longer set foot in now, I'm sick of this harping on "gender" which is made up nonsense, at the expense of biological sex. I think given that a large number of people working in theatre management are indeed women, the statement that these actions have been undertaken without consulting women is entirely false. Many women have been leaders in this movement.
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Post by crowblack on May 24, 2023 19:27:16 GMT
I think given that a large number of people working in theatre management are indeed women, the statement that these actions have been undertaken without consulting women is entirely false. Many women have been leaders in this movement. The handful of women in positions of power in theatreland (with their 'luxury beliefs') are not the ones using these toilets in the theatre intervals - that would be the audience, and we were not consulted. They were imposed on us. That thing called 'consent' forgotten. The Old Vic specifically fundraised with the words "more female loos" and when the refurb was done they were mixed sex instead ("Old Vic launches public fundraising campaign to increase women’s loos" The Stage 15/11/2018). And we weren't even allowed to discuss that - activists piled threats onto The Stage when they tried to run a for and against article and they caved in and pulled the article.
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Post by sph on May 24, 2023 19:35:04 GMT
But on the other hand you could argue that plenty of women in the audience are fine with it - I know many who are, and their voices are just as valid as yours.
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Post by crowblack on May 24, 2023 19:45:46 GMT
But on the other hand you could argue that plenty of women in the audience are fine with it - I know many who are, and their voices are just as valid as yours. Teenage me might have thought it was fine and dandy and hip and cool but older me, the one who was sexually assaulted in a shop, been filmed by a male in an arts complex toilet, and whose close relative was watched by a male while using a museum toilet is less sanguine about it. And then there's the whole wet seat, floor, smell and urinals issue. Anyway there's a whole other thread on this if you're interested. Simple solution - make the men's unisex or create a third mixed sex space so you and your friends can use that and keep the women's single sex for those of us for whom it matters.
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Post by lynette on May 26, 2023 18:25:22 GMT
Nobody asked me and before you dismiss this a joke which it is, I am ,as many of us on the Board are, supporters/members of theatres and contribute actual money over and above the price of tickets. No emails, no surveys, nada on this topic came my way. Should have been asked.
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Post by sph on May 26, 2023 19:44:05 GMT
I think though, that whether you agree with them or not, social norms change over time, and there could be a day in the not-too-distant future where non-gendered toilets are more common than gendered ones.
If this is led by Gen Z-ers and younger millennials, well, the world is theirs to inherit and society will progress as they see fit.
It may all be new to me too, but I respect their reasons for doing it, and who am I to stand in their way?
For that matter, I came across non-gendered toilets recently at the Southwark Playhouse. One, which clearly used to be the ladies, was marked "cubicles only" and the other, the former gents, was "cubicles and urinals". Interestingly, and perhaps predictably, the women all queued for the former ladies and the men for the former gents, so there seemed to be no issues in their organisation.
A trans person, who may not feel entirely comfortable in deciding which bathroom to use depending on where they are in their transition, may find this change welcome, and could use either bathroom without fear of admonishment.
As far as I'm aware, there have been no incidents thus far at the Southwark Playhouse of anyone's safety being compromised, at least not in a way that could be blamed on how they label their toilets.
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Post by crowblack on May 26, 2023 21:14:31 GMT
As far as I'm aware, there have been no incidents thus far at the Southwark Playhouse of anyone's safety being compromised, at least not in a way that could be blamed on how they label their toile There have been lots of incidents reported in other venues, though, including the recent conviction of an actual Met Policeman for filming women in unisex shop cubicles. Last month a teenage girl was raped in the mixed sex toilet of a young people's venue in my home town (the rapist, seen on cctv, is also a young man). I saw a 20-something male filming in toilets in an arts venue near us in 2019, and my relative was watched in a museum toilet - an arts venue again (this was a few years ago - he stuck his head beneath the partition - these days he could have just used his phone camera!). There's an idea that people who use arts venues are above that sort of thing, but the Royal Court toilets (mixed sex now) have a warning in them that thieves operate in the building - if you acknowledge that thieves do come in off the street to prey on customers, why assume no one else enters the building with ill intent?
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Post by oxfordsimon on May 26, 2023 21:37:37 GMT
If I had my way, there would only be individual cubicles and no shared spaces. But I know that is unrealistic.
I have never been comfortable with urinals. Not because I feel they are unsafe but because I just don't find the experience of using them to be a comfortable one.
So cubicles will always be my choice. Which can often involve a wait. But that is my preference.
In theory it doesn't matter who is in adjacent cubicles. And that is more true when the dividers go from floor to ceiling with no possibility of any contact. But that is not how all toilets are set up.
So I fully understand and support the need to have clearly defined spaces as have been the norm until recent years.
As has been reported, safety concerns have to be taken seriously. The infrastructure and facilities need to be improved and expanded in most public buildings and that isn't always easy.
We need to find ways of making everyone comfortable and safe when using toilets in public spaces. I don't feel that many of the current changes are looking at the whole of the population when they are being implemented.
Toilets should be safe, clean and adequate in number.
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Post by crowblack on May 26, 2023 21:57:32 GMT
As has been reported, safety concerns have to be taken seriously. The infrastructure and facilities need to be improved and expanded in most public buildings and that isn't always easy. The Photographer's Gallery has a good set up - individual self contained cubicle rooms situated with doors opening on to the staircase with sinks, mirrors and dryers in each and a clientele who are very tidy users. I appreciate this set up is unlikely to be possible in the cramped space of a theatre and there is the additional safety issue which is that floor to ceiling doors prevent you knowing if a user has collapsed inside.
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Post by theatrelover97 on May 26, 2023 22:21:23 GMT
Its clear rightly or wrongly the direction of travel is that they will be banned and that the toilet policy of many usa states, birth gender only, will became the law in England as well
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Post by oxfordsimon on May 26, 2023 22:30:03 GMT
As has been reported, safety concerns have to be taken seriously. The infrastructure and facilities need to be improved and expanded in most public buildings and that isn't always easy. The Photographer's Gallery has a good set up - individual self contained cubicle rooms situated with doors opening on to the staircase with sinks, mirrors and dryers in each and a clientele who are very tidy users. I appreciate this set up is unlikely to be possible in the cramped space of a theatre and there is the additional safety issue which is that floor to ceiling doors prevent you knowing if a user has collapsed inside. I don't know how much of an issue collapses in toilets are (particularly in arts venues) to know how far that needs to be taken into consideration. In public toilets more generally where the usage is, shall we say, not just limited to regular toilet use, that could be more of a concern. But in arts spaces, I would hope things are less likely to involve some of the activities I have know take place elsewhere. It isn't an easy balancing act
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Post by crowblack on May 26, 2023 23:18:58 GMT
I don't know how much of an issue collapses in toilets are Drugs, drink etc are obviously more 'nightclubby' issues, but collapse is also an issue with disability, older people, heart attacks. I've been in a theatre venue recently where an older woman has required assistance out of a cubicle by other toilet users (this was in a venue that has since then made that toilet 'unisex'). The fully enclosed toilets on trains have emergency buttons inside for this. It's how Elvis, Evelyn Waugh, George II, Catherine the Great (allegedly - and not by horse!) and a major character in the most talked about TV show at the moment died (I've just discovered there's even a Wikipedia page on it - quite a lot of assassinations too, but they don't really count for this discussion!)
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 12, 2023 21:59:25 GMT
The Women and Equality secretary Kemi Badernoch has announced all new public buildings will be required to have gender segregated toilets and has condemned the toilets in the old Vic
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2023 2:02:49 GMT
I'm waiting to hear the backlash against unisex toilets from certain faiths too, if the trans activists can get vocal and threatening its nothing to what some of the more volatile faith leaders could potentially start encouraging.
I'm not in favour of going totally by birth sex but I think you should maybe be expected to go by genatalia and do it that way.
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 13, 2023 8:57:10 GMT
Also it sounds like Trans people will be told to use the disabled loos at existing theatres. As toilets will go down to Birth sex only.
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Post by crowblack on Aug 13, 2023 12:27:51 GMT
Venues could simply do what they are now starting to do in UK sports: one block of female sex-specific toilets, another block labelled 'open - cubicles and urinals' for males however they identify or dress, and females who id as men if the male users are ok with sharing a space with them too.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2023 12:47:15 GMT
Venues could simply do what they are now starting to do in UK sports: one block of female sex-specific toilets, another block labelled 'open - cubicles and urinals' for males however they identify or dress, and females who id as men if the male users are ok with sharing a space with them too. A lot of sports crowds are heavily male orientated but that would make sense as it gives women a safe space.
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Post by crowblack on Aug 13, 2023 13:45:44 GMT
Venues could simply do what they are now starting to do in UK sports: one block of female sex-specific toilets, another block labelled 'open - cubicles and urinals' for males however they identify or dress, and females who id as men if the male users are ok with sharing a space with them too. A lot of sports crowds are heavily male orientated but that would make sense as it gives women a safe space. I meant in the actual competition: males who identify as women or girls have been allowed to enter - and, unsurprisingly, given their physical power advantage, win - women's sports categories. In the UK this is now being addressed by specifying that women's sport is for females, and the men's category has been retitled 'open' so theoretically anyone can enter that regardless of how they identify. I've heard of some theatres that have already done similar with toilets - kept the women's women's, renamed the men's block 'unisex'.
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Post by lynette on Aug 13, 2023 14:35:46 GMT
The Women and Equality secretary Kemi Badernoch has announced all new public buildings will be required to have gender segregated toilets and has condemned the toilets in the old Vic I condemned the toilets in the Old Vic decades ago. 😁 RSC has the person in the skirt sign for one lot ( corridor to Swan area ) and another lot, used to be person in trousers sign with three cubicles with hand basins inside the cubicles labelled all genders/uni gender ( can’t remember , sorry and I know it matters so please correct me guys) but the point I want to make is that anyone wearing a skirt can use the person wearing a skirt ones, no? I didn’t understand Kemi’s piece at all.
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Post by sph on Aug 13, 2023 14:37:46 GMT
Also it sounds like Trans people will be told to use the disabled loos at existing theatres. As toilets will go down to Birth sex only. How one would go about policing that though? Surely no one is going to be on the door demanding that no trans people use the facilities? And how would you know? There are many cisgender women who perhaps have some masculine physical traits, and many trans women who have happily lived most of their lives as women and no one would know that they were trans at all. Are you going to stop every woman from heading into the ladies if you think her shoulders are a little broad or her voice is too deep?
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Post by crowblack on Aug 13, 2023 15:09:01 GMT
Are you going to stop every woman from heading into the ladies if you think her shoulders are a little broad or her voice is too deep? Women have a different build from men, regardless of how we present. We're very good at identifying each other. If social, and legal, rules are laid down one would hope people have the decency to follow them. If they don't respect boundaries and enter spaces set aside for the safety, privacy and dignity of females, that's a red flag. Some venues have the toilet entrances by the cloakroom, with attendants, to police this. Up until, what, 2018, 2019, this went without saying. It was how we all knew and agreed to behave for the sake of privacy and safety. Women's spaces exist for a reason, and that reason hasn't magically gone away.
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 13, 2023 15:24:33 GMT
Venus will have to unlock disabled toilets. It wouldn't be safe or ethical to make a trans women go in the gents if they banned from the ladies nor would it be safe or ethical to put a transman in the ladies if they banned from the gents.
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 13, 2023 15:26:12 GMT
Venues could simply do what they are now starting to do in UK sports: one block of female sex-specific toilets, another block labelled 'open - cubicles and urinals' for males however they identify or dress, and females who id as men if the male users are ok with sharing a space with them too. I think they would have yo have three blocks really or a set of self Contained cubicles.
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 13, 2023 15:27:23 GMT
Are you going to stop every woman from heading into the ladies if you think her shoulders are a little broad or her voice is too deep? Women have a different build from men, regardless of how we present. We're very good at identifying each other. If social, and legal, rules are laid down one would hope people have the decency to follow them. If they don't respect boundaries and enter spaces set aside for the safety, privacy and dignity of females, that's a red flag. Some venues have the toilet entrances by the cloakroom, with attendants, to police this. Up until, what, 2018, 2019, this went without saying. It was how we all knew and agreed to behave for the sake of privacy and safety. Women's spaces exist for a reason, and that reason hasn't magically gone away. Not sure that's always the case. Plenty of trans women do pass after surgery and voice work.
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Post by Jon on Aug 13, 2023 15:30:09 GMT
Venus will have to unlock disabled toilets. It wouldn't be safe or ethical to make a trans women go in the gents if they banned from the ladies nor would it be safe or ethical to put a transman in the ladies if they banned from the gents. Stop saying trans people are banned from using single sex toilets, it's clearly not true.
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Post by crowblack on Aug 13, 2023 15:38:02 GMT
Not sure that's always the case. Plenty of trans women do pass after surgery and voice work They'd have to be very short, with small hands, small feet, narrow shoulders, wide hips, a lot of facial bone surgery - Asian 'ladyboys' might do but not Europeans. Venus will have to unlock disabled toilets. It wouldn't be safe or ethical to make a trans women go in the gents if they banned from the ladies nor would it be safe or ethical to put a transman in the ladies if they banned from the gents. If this was about safety or ethics, venues wouldn't have made toilets entirely unisex, as many have (Old Vic, Royal Court, Kazimier - urinals by the sinks, ew! - Young Vic upstairs etc). No one seemed to care about women's safety then: they didn't even bother to make the doors and partitions full height at these venues to stop cameraphones being used. If a transwoman is in danger in the gents, why was the 'solution' to rechristen all toilets unisex and let any men into the women's? This move was about the affirmation of 'identity', not safety. And there was all of lockdown when theatres were closed for them to install a third space, but they didn't (btw, it is not ethical to use the disabled toilet)
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 13, 2023 15:46:55 GMT
Venus will have to unlock disabled toilets. It wouldn't be safe or ethical to make a trans women go in the gents if they banned from the ladies nor would it be safe or ethical to put a transman in the ladies if they banned from the gents. Stop saying trans people are banned from using single sex toilets, it's clearly not true. It's what Kemi Badernoch is saying and the new ECHR guidance from a few months was impyling as well.
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 13, 2023 15:47:49 GMT
Not sure that's always the case. Plenty of trans women do pass after surgery and voice work They'd have to be very short, with small hands, small feet, narrow shoulders, wide hips, a lot of facial bone surgery - Asian 'ladyboys' might do but not Europeans. Venus will have to unlock disabled toilets. It wouldn't be safe or ethical to make a trans women go in the gents if they banned from the ladies nor would it be safe or ethical to put a transman in the ladies if they banned from the gents. If this was about safety or ethics, venues wouldn't have made toilets entirely unisex, as many have (Old Vic, Royal Court, Kazimier - urinals by the sinks, ew! - Young Vic upstairs etc). No one seemed to care about women's safety then: they didn't even bother to make the doors and partitions full height at these venues to stop cameraphones being used. If a transwoman is in danger in the gents, why was the 'solution' to rechristen all toilets unisex and let any men into the women's? This move was about the affirmation of 'identity', not safety. And there was all of lockdown when theatres were closed for them to install a third space, but they didn't (btw, it is not ethical to use the disabled toilet) Where is the room coming from at most London theatres coming from?
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