In favour of female-only toilets
Why single-sex spaces are important
When women in New Zealand are saying that they want to preserve single-sex spaces like loos and changing rooms they’re getting quite a lot of flak.
Some transwomen (or those advocating for them) are saying We just want to pee and We have always used women’s toilets and There has never been a problem, why is this suddenly an issue? And weirdly Single-sex toilets don’t really exist anyway. You Bigot, TERF, Fascist etc etc.
Some women1 are saying I don’t mind sharing, I am happy to share, I feel perfectly safe, I have shared with transwomen for five and a quarter centuries and there has never been a problem and on and on.
Actually none of that should matter when we think about single-sex space policies. It’s not about transgender women, it’s about women. It’s not about whether or not one person is comfortable in mixed-sex loos but about the impacts on all women. It’s also not about anyone’s willingness to offer up single-sex spaces on a sanctimonious platter as part of a ‘be kind’ sacrificial ritual of the sort that people are so inclined to perform these days.
Female-only toilets and changing rooms are one of a number of safety measures that help reduce violence against women and girls. They also increase the likelihood of girls and women participating in public life like going to school. Author Helen Joyce has pointed out that the design of female toilets is very deliberate, and has been so effective that many people have just forgotten that women and girls going to a space where you partially remove clothes and sit down can be really dangerous. She also discusses how providing only gender neutral toilets might not be the panacea many claim. Visiting a local bar she noted gender neutral toilets that were behind a door, away from a public space and the cubicles completely enclosed. While this might seem like a safe scenario, Joyce points out that out of public view a man could easily attack a woman, push them inside one of those cubicles, lock the door, and do whatever they want in a virtually soundproof environment.2
The policy decision comes down to this:
If we want to increase the number of assaults and rapes we take away female-only loos.
If we want to reduce the number of girls going to school especially during their period, we take away girls’ loos.
If we want to exclude women particularly women with disabilities, who are often more vulnerable when going to the toilet, from being in public, let’s take away single-sex loos.
If we want any women, who for whatever reason, will only use single-sex loos to miss out on public life, let’s go universal gender-neutral toilets.
Some women’s faiths forbid them from being in loos with males. If we want to keep those women at home, let’s go ahead and take away those single-sex spaces.
Women in pubs and clubs being harassed by men will often retreat to a single-sex space knowing that social norms will ensure the harasser won’t follow them. If we want no safe retreat for women out dancing or drinking, let’s make the bogs gender-neutral.
For those who say, well a female sign on the door is not going to stop a predator entering a bathroom, well actually it might. A male seen following a girl or a woman into a female-only space will set off alarm bells for any decent member of the public. So if we want to get rid of the social stigma of male predators following women into a private space, yeah sure let’s burn those women’s loos to the ground.
Like Joyce, I have also been thinking about how many of the organisations that once fought or still fight for single-sex loos in poor countries are now also fighting to get rid of them in richer countries. It makes no sense and it endangers girls and women. Across the world, in every country, almost all violence against females is done by males.
Research from around the world shows that single-sex bathrooms reduce violence against women and girls3. Here are just a handful of examples.
Dignity and the decent facility, New Internationalist, 2008.
Looks at the importance of female-only loos for Indian women.
Lack of toilets puts India’s health and rural women’s safety at risk, The Guardian, 2014.
"Among women, toilets figure in the top three needs for their own security and health.”
“With one out of three women worldwide lacking access to safe toilets, it is a moral imperative to end open defecation to ensure women and girls are not at risk of assault and rape simply because they lack a sanitation facility, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged today on World Toilet Day.”
Female-friendly toilets in schools in Burkina Faso: A mixed-methods study using photo-elicitation, Journal of Global Health, 2022.
“Female-friendly toilets have been described as gender-segregated facilities that provide safety, privacy, lighting, water, soap and a culturally appropriate way to dispose of menstrual waste. Such toilets must have features desired in all toilets (eg, suitable drainage systems), while also being attuned to gendered needs (eg, being safely accessible by day and night, and allowing for safe disposal of menstrual products) [1]. Recent calls for an expansion of female-friendly toilets stem from a recognition that women and girls are disproportionately affected by poor sanitation [2]. An absence of female-friendly toilets contributes to negative health outcomes among women and girls including: an increased risk of violence [3], psychosocial stress [4,5], urogenital and reproductive tract infections [6,7] and other social and health issues that arise from inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)”.
Bathrooms and girls’ education in Africa, The Borgen Project, 2020.
"The majority of sexual assault and rape incidents happen in school bathrooms because there is only one facility for all students with very little to no privacy."
Toilets matter; a short guide to law and good practice, Sex Matters, 2023.
As well as providing suggestions for best practice for policy makers it provides quotes from various people about the impact of having or not having access to single-sex public toilets.
So what’s it going to be then New Zealand policy makers and politicians? Are you going to trivialise the toilet issue? Are you going to mock and ridicule women who want to preserve single-sex spaces? Are you going to dismantle single-sex spaces and actively exclude groups of women from public life? Are you going to stand by policies that will increase the chances of rape and assault against women and girls? Are you then going to claim that you stand for inclusivity and diversity? Or are you a bit better than that?
By women I mean of the biological class formerly known as women everywhere before bureaucrats decided to impose a new language on everyone that only allows newthink.
I had to dig back a bit in some cases to when women meant adult, human female and be kind included being kind to women and girls.
It's insane that we are even having this conversation 😒